11.1 The Experience of Emotions – Introduction to Psychology – 1st Canadian Edition (2023)

The most basic emotions, known as base emotions, are those ofAnger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise🇧🇷 Basic emotions have a long history in human evolution and evolved in large part to help us make quick judgments about stimuli and quickly direct appropriate behavior (LeDoux, 2000). Basic emotions are largely determined by one of the oldest parts of our brain, the limbic system, which includes the amygdala, hypothalamus, and thalamus. Because they are primarily evolutionary, basic emotions are experienced and displayed in the same way in all cultures (Ekman, 1992; Ivory & Ambady, 2002; Fridland, Ekman, & Oster, 1987), and people are evolving in evaluating of emotions quite expressions of people from different cultures. See "Video Clip: Basic Emotions" for a demonstration of basic emotions.

See: "Recognize basic emotions" [YouTube]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haW6E7qsW2c

Not all of our emotions come from the old parts of our brain; We also interpret our experiences to create a more complex set of emotional experiences. For example, the amygdala can feel fear when it feels the body fall, but that fear can be interpreted very differently (perhaps even as emotion) when we are falling down a roller coaster than when we are falling out of the sky on an airplane. that has lost strength. EITHERCognitive interpretations that accompany emotions- known ascognitive assessment– allow us to experience a much larger and more complex set ofsecondary emotions, as shown in Figure 11.2, “Secondary emotions”. Although largely cognitive, our experiences with secondary emotions are determined in part by arousal (on the vertical axis of Figure 11.2, “Secondary Emotions”) and in part by your arousal.valor– that is, if the feelings are pleasant or unpleasant (on the horizontal axis of Figure 11.2, “Secondary emotions”),

If you manage to achieve an important goal, you can spend some time enjoying your secondary emotions, perhaps the experience of joy, contentment, and contentment. But when your close friend wins an award that he thought was worthy, he too may experience a variety of secondary emotions (negative in this case), for example anger, sadness, resentment, and shame. You may think about the event for weeks or even months and experience these negative emotions every time you think about it (Martin & Tesser, 2006).

The distinction between primary and secondary emotions is accompanied by two signaling pathways in the brain: a fast pathway and a slow pathway (Damasio, 2000; LeDoux, 2000; Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002). Guardians in this process (Figure 11.3, “Slow and fast emotional trajectories”). Our reaction to the basic emotion of fear, for example, is primarily determined by fast-tracking it through the limbic system. When a car stops in front of us on the highway, the thalamus is activated and immediately sends a message to the amygdala. We quickly move our foot to the brake pedal. Secondary emotions are more likely determined by a slow journey through the frontal lobes to the cortex. When we are jealous of losing a partner to a rival or remember our victory in a great tennis match, the process is more complex. Information passes from the thalamus to the frontal lobes and from there to the amygdala for analysis and cognitive integration. We experience emotional arousal, but this is accompanied by a more complex cognitive assessment that evokes more refined emotions and behavioral responses.

While emotions may seem more frivolous or less important compared to our more rational cognitive processes, both emotions and cognitions can help us make effective decisions. In some cases we act after rationally processing the costs and benefits of various decisions, but in other cases we trust our emotions. Emotions become particularly important in decision making when the alternatives among many complex and contradictory alternatives present us with a high level of uncertainty and ambiguity, making full cognitive analysis difficult. In these cases, we often rely on our emotions to make decisions, and these decisions can in many cases be more accurate than those generated by cognitive processing (Damasio, 1994; Dijksterhuis, Bos, Nordgren & van Baaren, 2006; Nordgren & Dijksterhuis , 2009; Wilson and Schooler, 1991).

Cannon-Bard and James-Lange theories of emotion

Recall for a moment a situation in which you experienced an intense emotional reaction. Maybe you woke up in the middle of the night in a panic because you heard a noise that made you think someone broke into your house or apartment. Or maybe you were walking leisurely down a neighborhood street when suddenly another car stopped in front of you, forcing you to brake hard to avoid an accident. I'm sure you remember that your emotional response was primarily physical. You may remember feeling hot, fast, nauseated, or short of breath. You have experienced the physiological part of emotions, arousal, and I am sure you have had similar feelings in other situations, perhaps when you were in love, angry, ashamed, frustrated, or very sad.

When you think of a strong emotional experience, you may wonder about the order of events. You certainly experienced arousal, but did the arousal occur before, after, or along with experiencing the excitement? Psychologists have proposed three different theories of emotion, differing with respect to the hypothesized role of arousal in emotion (Figure 11.4, “Three Theories of Emotion”).

If your experiences are anything like mine, when you reflect on the emotion you experienced in strong emotional situations, you probably have something like, "I was scared and my heart started pounding." At least some psychologists agree with this interpretation. According to Walter Cannon and Philip Bard's theory of emotion, experiencing emotion (in this case, "I'm afraid") runs parallel to experiencing emotion ("my heart is beating fast"). CorrespondentCannon-Bard-Emotionstheorie,experiencing an emotion is accompanied by physiological arousal🇧🇷 According to this model of emotion, our heart rate also increases when we become aware of danger.

Although the idea that experiencing an emotion occurs along with the arousal that accompanies it seems intuitive to our everyday experiences, psychologists William James and Carl Lange had a different idea of ​​the role of arousal. CorrespondentJames-Lange theory of emotions,our experience of an emotion is the result of the arousal we experience🇧🇷 This approach proposes that arousal and emotion are not independent of each other, but that emotion depends on arousal. Fear doesn't come with a racing heart, but it doesthroughThe racing heart. As William James said: "We feel pity because we cry, anger because we shake, fear because we tremble" (James, 1884, p. 190). A key aspect of the James-Lange theory is that different arousal patterns can produce different emotional experiences.

There is research evidence to support each of these theories. The operation of the fast emotional pathway (Figure 11.4, “Fast and Slow Emotional Pathways”) supports the idea that arousal and emotions occur together. The emotional circuits of the limbic system are activated when an emotional stimulus is perceived, and these circuits quickly generate the corresponding physical responses (LeDoux, 2000). The process happens so fast that we feel like the emotion is happening at the same time as our physical arousal.

On the other hand, and as predicted by the James-Lange theory, without arousal, our emotional experiences are weaker. Patients with spinal injuries that reduce their arousal experience also report reduced emotional responses (Hohmann, 1966). There is also at least some support for the idea that different arousal patterns produce different emotions. People who see faces of fear show more amygdala activation than those who see faces of anger or joy (Whalen et al., 2001; Witvliet & Vrana, 1995), we experience blushing and blushing when we feel embarrassed, but not when we experience embarrassment. different emotions (Leary, Britt, Cutlip, & Templeton, 1992), and different hormones are released when we experience compassion than when we experience different emotions (Oatley, Keltner, & Jenkins, 2006).

The two factor theory of emotion

Since the James-Lange theory proposes that each emotion has a different pattern of arousal, thetwo factor theoryof Emotion takes the opposite approach, arguing that the arousal we experience is fundamentally the same across all emotions, and that all emotions (including basic emotions) are distinguished only by our cognitive assessment of the source of the arousal. EITHERTwo-factor theory of emotionclaims thatThe experience of the emotion is determined by the intensity of the arousal we experience, but the cognitive appraisal of the situation determines what the emotion will be like.🇧🇷 Since both arousal and evaluation are necessary, we can say that emotions have two factors: an arousal factor and a cognitive factor (Schachter & Singer, 1962):

Emotion = arousal + cognition

In some cases, it can be difficult for a person experiencing high levels of arousal to identify exactly what emotion they are experiencing. That is, the person may be sure that they are experiencing arousal, but the meaning of the arousal (the cognitive factor) may be less clear. For example, some romantic relationships have very high levels of arousal and partners take turns experiencing extreme ups and downs in the relationship. One day they are madly in love and the next they have a violent argument. In situations accompanied by great excitement, people may not be sure of the emotion they are experiencing. For example, in the highly aroused relationship, the partners are not sure if the emotion they are feeling is love, hate, or both.The tendency for people to mislabel the source of the arousal they experience.is known as themisattribution of emotion.

In an interesting field study by Dutton and Aron (1974), young men were approached by an attractive young woman as they crossed a long, unstable suspension bridge that hung more than 200 feet above a river in British Columbia (Figure 11.5). , “Capilano Suspension Bridge”). The woman asked each man to help her fill out a class questionnaire. When she finished, she wrote her name and phone number on a piece of paper and invited him to call if she wanted to know more about the project. More than half of the men interviewed on the bridge called the woman. Men who were approached by the same woman on a low fixed bridge or by men on the suspension bridge, on the other hand, called significantly less often. the arousal could be this Explain the result: The men felt arousal from the top of the bridge, but mistakenly attributed it to the woman as romantic or sexual The attraction that made them more likely to call her.

Assuming that arousal in emotions is constant, the two-factor theory also predicts that emotions can transfer or spill over from one highly arousing event to another. My university's basketball team recently won a basketball championship, but after the final victory, some students rampaged through the streets near campus, lighting bonfires and burning cars. This seems like a very strange reaction to such a positive outcome for the university and students, but it can be explained by happiness-induced emotion spilling over into destructive behaviors. The principle ofexcitation transmissionrefers tothe phenomenon that occurs when people who are already experiencing the emotion of an event tend to feel unrelated emotions more strongly as well.

In short, each of the three emotion theories has something to back it up. In Cannon-Bard terms, excitement and arousal are often subjectively experienced together, and the propagation is very rapid. In support of the James-Lange theory, there is at least some evidence that arousal is necessary to experience emotions, and that arousal patterns are different for different emotions. And according to the two-factor model, there is also evidence that we can interpret the same arousal patterns differently in different situations.

communicate emotions

In addition to experiencing emotions internally, we also express our emotions to others and learn about the emotions of others by observing them. This communication process has evolved over time and is highly adaptable. One way we perceive the emotions of others is through theirs.non-verbal communication, That's it,Communication, especially likes and dislikes, that does not involve words.(Ambady & Weisbuch, 2010; Andersen, 2007). Nonverbal communication includes our tone of voice, gait, posture, touch, and facial expressions, and we can often identify the emotions that other people are experiencing through these channels. Table 11.1, “Some Common Nonverbal Communicators,” shows some of the important nonverbal behaviors we use to express emotions and some other information (especially liking or disliking and dominance or submission).

Just as there is no universal spoken language, there is also no universal non-verbal language. For example, in Canada, we show disrespect by showing the middle finger (either the finger or the bird). But in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, the V sign (with the back of the hand facing the recipient) serves a similar purpose. In countries where Spanish, Portuguese or French are spoken, a gesture of raising the fist and touching the biceps with the arm is equivalent to the finger, and in Russia, Indonesia, Turkey and China, a gesture where the hand and fingers are curved and the thumb slides between the middle and index fingers and serves the same purpose.

The most important communicator of emotions is the face. The face contains 43 different muscles that allow it to perform more than 10,000 unique configurations and express a wide variety of emotions. For example, happiness is expressed by smiles produced by two of the major muscles surrounding the mouth and eyes, and anger is produced by lowered eyebrows and pursed lips.

The face not only helps us express our emotions but also helps us feel emotions. EITHERFace-Feedback-Hypothesissuggests thatthe movement of our facial muscles can trigger corresponding emotions🇧🇷 Fritz Strack and colleagues (1988) asked their research participants to hold a pencil between their teeth (to mimic the facial movement of a smile) or between their lips (similar to a frown) and then rate the grace of a smile. They found that the cartoons were funnier when the pen was held in a smiling position: the subjective emotional experience was enhanced by facial muscle action.

These and similar findings show that our behavior, including our facial expressions, influences and is influenced by our affect. We can smile because we are happy, but we are also happy because we smile. And we may stand tall because we're proud, but we're proud because we're on top (Stepper & Strack, 1993).

references

Ambady , N. and Weisbuch , M. (2010). Nonverbal behavior. In ST Fiske, DT Gilbert and G Lindzey (Eds.),social psychology textbook(5th ed., vol. 1, pp. 464–497). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Anderson, P. (2007).Nonverbal communication: forms and functions(2ª ed.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press.

Damasio, A. (2000).The feeling of what is happening: body and emotion in the construction of consciousness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . New York, NY: Mariner Books.

Damasio, AR (1994).Descartes' mistake: emotion, reason and the human brain. . . . New York, NY: Grosset/Putnam.

Dijksterhuis, A., Bos, MW, Nordgren, LF, and van Baaren, RB. (2006). On the right choice: the effect of meaningless deliberation.science, 311(5763), 1005–1007.

Dutton, D and Aron, A (1974). Some evidence of increased sexual attraction in severe anxiety.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 510–517.

Ekman, P. (1992). Are there basic emotions?Psychological review, 99(3), 550-553.

Ivory, H.A. & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity of emotion recognition: a meta-analysis.Psychological Bulletin, 128, 203–23.

Fridlund, AJ, Ekman, P. & Oster, H. (1987). Emotional facial expressions. In A. Siegman and S. Feldstein (Eds.),Behavior and non-verbal communication(2nd Aufl., pp. 143-223). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hohmann, GW (1966). Some effects of spinal cord injury on the emotional feelings experienced.Psychophysiology, 3(2), 143–156.

James, W. (1884). What is an emotion?mind, 9(34), 188–205.

Leary, M. R., Britt, T. W., Cutlip, W. D. y Templeton, J. L. (1992). Rubor social.Psychological Bulletin, 112(3), 446–460.

LeDoux, J.E. (2000). Emotional circuits in the brain.Annual Journal of Neuroscience, 23, 155–184.

Martin, LL and Tesser, A (2006). Extending the rumination theory of goal progression: goal reappraisal and growth. In L. J. Sanna and E. C. Chang (eds.),Judgments over time: the interplay of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors(S. 145-162). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Nordgren, LF and Dijksterhuis, AP (2009). The devil is in the reasoning: overthinking reduces the consistency of preferences.Consumer Research Magazine, 36(1), 39–46.

Oatley, K., Keltner, D. y Jenkins, J. M. (2006).understand emotions(2nd edition). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Ochsner, KN, Bunge, S.A., Gross, J.J. and Gabrieli, J.D.E. (2002). Rethinking feelings: an fMRI study on the cognitive regulation of emotions.Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(8), 1215-1229.

Russell, J.A. (1980). A circumflex model of affect.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 1161–1178.

Schachter, S and Singer, J (1962). Cognitive, social and physiological determinants of emotional state.Psychological review, 69., 379–399.

Stepper, S. & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and non-emotional feelings.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(2), 211–220.

Strack, F., Martin, L. & Stepper, S. (1988). Inhibition and facilitation of human smiling conditions: a non-intrusive test of the facial feedback hypothesis.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(5), 768-777. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.768

Whalen, P.J., Shin, LM., McInerney, SC., Fischer, H., Wright, CI. and Rauch, S.L. (2001). A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of human amygdala responses to facial expressions of fear versus anger.emotions 1(1), 70–83;

Wilson, TD and Schooler, J.W. (1991). Overthinking: Introspection can reduce the quality of preferences and decisions.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(2), 181–192.

Witvliet, C.V. & Vrana, S.R. (1995). Psychophysiological responses as indices of affective dimensions.Psychophysiology, 32(5), 436–443.

image attributions

Figure 11.2:Adapted from Russell, 1980.
Figure 11.5:Goobiebilly Capilano Suspension Bridge (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Capilano_suspension_bridge_-g.jpg) used under CC-BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en) .

Figure 11.6:Adapted from Schachter & Singer, 1962.

long descriptions

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